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The Academy of American Poets is the largest membership-based nonprofit organization fostering an appreciation for contemporary poetry and supporting American poets. For over three generations, the Academy has connected millions of people to great poetry through programs such as National Poetry Month, the largest literary celebration in the world; Poets.org, the Academy’s popular website; American Poets, a biannual literary journal; and an annual series of poetry readings and special events. Since its founding, the Academy has awarded more money to poets than any other organization.

The Dream Songs

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John Berryman was born in 1914 and classically trained in formal poetry at Columbia and Cambridge Universities. His early work includes a cycle of love sonnets called Sonnets for Chris and the collection Homage to Mistress Bradstreet, which marked his turn towards more innovative and experimental forms.

The publication of 77 Dream Songs in 1964 marked the beginning of the major project of Berryman's career, ultimately culminating in nearly four hundred of his astonishing near-sonnets. Many of the poems are narrated by Henry, Berryman's alterego, who speaks as if from a dream world, among uninterpretable, but strangely familiar dream symbols and situations. Awarded a Pulitzer Prize, the poems of 77 Dream Songs are characterized by their unusual syntax, mix of high and low diction, and virtuosic language. Commonly anthologized dream songs include "Filling her compact & delicious body," "Henry sats, " "I’m scared a lonely," and "Henry’s Confession." The book famously begins:

Huffy Henry hid the day,unappeasable Henry sulked.I see his point,--a trying to put things over.It was the thought that they thoughtthey could do it made Henry wicked & away.But he should have come out and talked.

Sometimes grouped with the Confessional poets, along with Sylvia Plath and Robert Lowell, Berryman is separated from these writers by the startling world his characters inhabit, which obscures any sense of autobiography—Henry is at once Berryman, and not Berryman, and comparisons become, quickly, besides the point. Berryman once said, "Henry is accused of being me and I am accused of being Henry and I deny it and nobody believes me."